Hugo Black

“ Whatever may be the elegancies of procedure by which the matter is to be determined, our decision declining to consider the grave constitutional issues which we thought we had before us, is contingent upon a determination by the Supreme Court of California that the law of that State is what our decision presupposes it to be, namely, that California by a remedy which California chooses to call mandamus enables the present petitioner to secure a judicial determination of his present sanity. ”

“ Applications for inquiries into sanity made by a defendant sentenced to death, unsupported by facts, and buttressed by no good reasons for believing that the defendant has lost his sanity, cannot, with any appropriate regard for society and for the judicial process, call for the delays in execution incident to full judicial inquiry. And a court can just as satisfactorily determine by mandamus as by direct application whether there are good reasons to have a full-fledged judicial inquiry into a defendant's sanity. ”

“ In considering what the issues may be in a mandamus proceeding, it must be borne in mind that the warden is under a mandatory duty to initiate judicial proceedings, not when a defendant is insane, but when 'there is good reason to believe' he is insane. We cannot say at this time that California's remedy by mandamus will be less than a substantial equivalent [11] of one which authorized him to apply directly to a court for a full hearing. ”